Destroyer of Worlds
by fleurs-du-mol
Summary: A shadowy, pseudo-religious group calling itself the Simulacra has taken to torturing aliens, and naturally it's up to Torchwood to figure out why. Post "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang." Heavy Janto, some Tosh/Owen. There may be other specific spoilers, but I'll do my best to include them in author's notes.
1. On Death and Dying

**A/N: **Soon after "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," and sometime during the second series. Not going to be too specific about where this fits, exactly, because I find that to be limiting, but in any event this could be a side project between canon episodes. Or some such nonsense.

Plenty of planned Janto. Owen and Tosh are as awkward as ever.

Plot, yes, there is plot.

* * *

Jack Harkness wondered, idly, if people would ever tire of trying to see if he could die and then _really_ come back. This—what he was experiencing right now—was something out of the 19th century, or really even earlier: a religious cult getting wind of his inability to die, and then restraining him, and _then_ inflicting as many awful things as they possibly could to his body for no apparent reasons… other than humans seemed to have trouble with the concept of long-term nonviolence, and a fear of the unknown.

He didn't _have_ to be here, in this rural, isolated little farm. The trouble was, the cult had started catching and "purifying" aliens, only weevils as far as he knew, but enough was enough. What was it about the countryside?

He couldn't decide if cannibalism, or religious fervor turned torture, was worse.

Torchwood Three had agreed under extreme duress that allowing Jack to be tortured would mean that whoever was doing the torturing would divulge more information. They needed it, particularly because if it got back to any other planets that humans were actively torturing aliens, the results could be horrific. Although it was true that this was, to the best of their knowledge, a small-scale operation, Jack never wanted to take that chance where he could help it. Besides, this could be one cell of a larger network of more crazy-but-dangerous groups.

So far, the assumption that someone would talk to him while killing him was true, to an extent. They'd learned a lot in the twelve or so hours Jack had been held. But it had, unfortunately, backfired when Tosh and Owen had failed to barge in before he recovered from dying the first time around. That was the plan: barge in, arrest the four cult members and hold them in the Vault until further notice. No one wanted to report them to UNIT but it was an option, too.

It wasn't Owen or Tosh's fault they'd been late; the whole process was a variable one and Jack couldn't say exactly how long it would take him to recover from every possible injury or malady. Not for the first time he wished he hadn't allowed Ianto to take such a long stretch of vacation days. Nobody was getting anywhere on time and they'd been relying on, horror of horrors, instant coffee.

He sat tied to a chair—_how many more times in my life is this going to happen_—and was panting, recovering from just having been skewered with a harpoon. It was beyond him why anybody this far inland would even own a real harpoon, but he'd seen stranger things. The cult's leader, who didn't sound Welsh, but had instead what Jack thought was a Bostonian flavor on some words, eyed him critically.

"Shot once, suffocated, and harpooned," he said, glittering green eyes narrowed at his captive. "You must be alien. Is there anything we can do to you that _will_ result in your death?"

"As far as we know, no," said Owen Harper's voice from somewhere behind Jack. They were in a tilting old barn, and the space wasn't very big, which made it easy to contain. Thanks to special-grade contact lenses that he was still wearing even now, the team already had extensive knowledge of where Jack was being kept, in spite of its obscure location. "So really, you needn't bother trying."

Jack grinned and twisted to see Owen, chin thrust out defiantly, out of the corner of his eye. Toshiko Sato stood next to him, and both of them held guns, unflinching. _I love my team. _That left Gwen manning the van. But if he knew Gwen Cooper as well as he thought he did, then she was already out scouting the property for the other three bad guys and would have them well in hand by the time he or Owen had barely started the ignition.

"Ah, hello kids," said Jack.

"Tosh, go see to the reverend," said Owen, still pointing a gun at the frail man, who had wisely dropped the bloodied harpoon to the floor. He was staring at them in high disdain.

Sure, he could run at Tosh or Owen, but someone with a propulsion weapon would win that race unless they were inept. Neither was, and the harpoon was old and might not survive actually being thrown.

"With pleasure," Tosh said.

She strode forward, her slight frame making little sound on the wood floor, and before the man could react, had stuck him with a prickly little wand that contained the best sedative Jack had found to date.

He used it for more fun activities, but it also had its utilitarian purpose. Owen lowered his gun and looked unconcerned as Jack's antagonist fell to the ground, immediately succumbing to the chemicals. Gwen had another wand to use, and generally the sedative was far more efficient than any sort of handcuffs they had.

Rolling his eyes, Owen hurried to untie Jack, who was currently grimacing his way through his stomach knitting itself back together. "Jack, I swear to God if we have to deal with any more of these country freaks I'm going to go back to working for the NHS."

"No you won't," said Tosh, as she checked the unconscious reverend's pockets for weapons.

"Yeah, probably not."

Jack fell back against the chair. "I am glad you lot got here before he started electrocution. That one's not fun."

Owen snorted. "And getting harpooned is?"

Jack's only response was a wider grin.

"Come on, let's see to Gwen," said Jack. He gestured to the heap of religious bigot on the ground and Owen shouldered the load easily. The man weighed far less than he did. Tosh glanced at Jack, concerned. "It's all right. I can stagger, and we're only going back to the Hub. Do you have a gun for me, just in case?" Tosh nodded and reached around to her back pocket, passing the weapon to her boss. "Good girl."

They were unsurprised to find that in the time it had taken them to walk back to the van, which was about fifty yards away, Gwen had loaded the three other suspects—all petite, pretty women, which led Jack to wonder about their actual purpose—into the back. Gwen treated them a little like they were dead bodies, laying them down in the boot, but Jack couldn't help but admire her effectiveness.

"You all right?" asked Gwen, taking in his bedraggled, bloody appearance. She stared at him from under her long fringe.

Waving a hand, Jack said, "Oh, you know. This is nothing. There was this one time around 1890 when a barmaid got me with a—" Jack groaned as he settled into the passenger side front seat, which took the panache out of his anecdote. "Well, anyway, stomach wounds are always interesting, depending on what's been stuck in you."

"Oh yes, interesting is the word I'd use too," she said. Jack chuckled. "I only hope I'll be as blasé as you are if I have as many near-death experiences, which I'm sure I won't, but still."

"Never say never," Owen said. "Specially with this job and me driving."

The trip back to the Hub took almost an hour, though the sedative would continue to have an effect until late evening. Whatever species it had originated with, they apparently had a faster metabolism than your average human.

By the time they'd returned, Jack's wounds had healed and he'd stopped feeling like his head was a lead zeppelin.

"Okay. Tosh, I need records on these people. Everything you can find. We'll do face recognition if we can't find anything off individual names and connections. Owen, if we can get blood work on those women while they're still out, that would be best. I'm a little suspicious that they were probably coerced, which may mean drugs. Before we start giving anyone any kind of truth serum, we should know what else is in their systems. The sedative I was willing to risk, but not much else. Gwen—transfer our friend the reverend down to the Vault. Make sure he's next to a weevil." He paused. "I hate to say this, you three, but since it was so easy to swoop in and rescue me, there are probably more of them somewhere."

Tosh said, "We'll deal with it."

It took Jack a full two minutes in the Hub to recognize that the smell of coffee was permeating the place, and everyone had dispersed before Ianto Jones appeared with the customary tray of coffee cups.

Maybe he was very glad to see them, because for the first time in months there were also accompanying biscuits. _Vacation can't have gone so well then._ He watched Ianto from the second level, taking in everything from Ianto's immaculate chocolate brown suit to the coffee, realizing just how happy the sight made him. It wasn't_ only_ because Ianto was back early from what he'd said was a romantic interlude with a relatively new girlfriend, and if he was back early that meant something bad probably had happened, but that was a large part of Jack's happiness. The other part was admiring the way Ianto filled out his trousers. He was thin but he wasn't lacking.

And having just been harpooned, Jack felt entitled to some kind of inappropriate glee over another's misfortune.

Especially since that person was Ianto and they still hadn't gone on their date, due in no small amount to the way he'd promptly shacked up with some perky bookstore clerk about a week after Jack had asked.

Feeling territorial was not a new experience for Jack, but it was a rare one.

"Bless, Ianto," said Owen from around an enormous bite of biscuit. "My blood sugar was starting to get low. And how was France?"

"Anticlimactic," Ianto said, turning and offering the tray to Tosh.

"I've never heard anyone say so," she said playfully as she took a coffee. "But then, you are back two days early."

Ianto only smiled faintly and asked, "Where's Gwen?"

Owen swallowed the last of his biscuit, reached for another one, and said, "Downstairs with our latest prisoner. I think she literally just dragged him down there… can't blame her, really."

"Why's that?"

"Well," said Tosh, appearing to choose her words carefully, "the day after you left, we came across a sort of… cult. It was torturing aliens. Anyway, we decided to send Jack in to see—"

"To see if they'd spill a little more easily to someone they were concurrently hurting," said Owen. Jack bit back a smile. "Who better than the man who can't die?"

"No one," said Ianto.

Jack knew that Owen knew there was a heap of unresolved tension between Ianto and himself, but he dealt with it far differently than Tosh or Gwen did. Whereas they were pretty gentle about it, Owen went in with guns blazing to see if he could make anything happen. That was Torchwood, though: incestuous in its interests and gossip. Ianto was tense. Jack noted the tightening of his shoulders, as well as the way that his arms stiffened as they held the tray.

"Oh, Jack was a trooper," Owen said.

Ianto only said, "And did they spill anything of import?"

Tosh looked daggers at Owen, who oozed nonchalance. "Eventually. It was pretty gory, though. Saw the whole thing on those contacts. He was shot, then suffocated, then harpooned—"

Jack decided it would be best to clear his throat and declare his presence, before Ianto hauled off and smacked Owen. "Guys—hop to it. That sedative isn't going to last all night. Believe me, I know. Ianto, you weren't supposed to be back until Tuesday, but now that I'm smelling that coffee, I can't tell you to go away."

_I probably should change out of this shirt, but at least they didn't skewer the coat. _He looked down at his torso, where flesh was healed but the shirt looked like a gored, bloody mess.

Owen threw Ianto a wink and sauntered off to the autopsy room. Tosh turned back to her computers. Ianto was pointedly not looking up at Jack, who went back to his office to find a spare shirt—he was sure he had one pigeonholed away somewhere.

It wouldn't be his fault if Ianto _happened_ to walk in right as he stripped off the old one. His sense of timing didn't do him wrong; just as he turned, shirtless, to the cupboard, he heard Ianto make a small, frustrated sound in the doorway. Ianto was lucky that that whim hadn't struck Jack to take a shower.

"Coffee, Sir." The tray made it to the top of the desk with barely a clatter of repressed emotion. Ianto was good, even when he was rattled.

Jack managed his most dashing smile when he turned back around, taking his time in dressing his upper half. "Thanks. So—gay Paris not all it's cracked up to be?"

Ianto's blue eyes flicked for just a second to Jack's fingers, which were still buttoning his shirt. "Not exactly."

"That's a shame," said Jack, not meaning it at all, widening his eyes innocently.

"Neither was Nice."

"How disappointing."

With a carefully bland expression, Ianto handed Jack a mug of coffee. Then he picked the tray back up and started to make his way down to Gwen, who'd returned from securing the reverend.

Over his shoulder, he said, "Not very, Sir."

"Miss us, did you?"

Only then did Jack see the glint in his eyes: the one Ianto had when he made some very droll, hard to catch snarky remark. "It's much more _invigorating _to be home."

Jack blinked at him, thinking of just how invigorating he and Ianto could be afterhours. But maybe it was too soon to truly go after him. Again. He didn't _really_ even know why Ianto had come back from France, calling off what should have been a delightful holiday, in favor of coming back to Torchwood.

_I'm sure that hooking up with what's-her-name was retaliation for John. But for all I know, she could have caught food poisoning in Montmartre or something. Maybe nothing actually happened between them. _

_Hell, they could be engaged—there seems to be an epidemic of that going around. I hope not._

Even though Gwen hardly counted as an epidemic, by Torchwood standards anyone getting engaged was kind of a big deal.

But what Jack said was, "I have an invigorating effect on the vast majority of beings; there's no need to be coy if you missed it."

"Oh, that's what I'm afraid of, Sir."

_Oh, definitely punishment. And now he's perturbed I put myself in harm's way. This is going to be fun._


	2. Just Jack

The small basket of dirty clothes that sat on the laundry room floor was far less depressing than it should have been. Most people would be disappointed they didn't have much laundry to do after a holiday—it showed something had gone wrong—but to Ianto it meant he was back early from what had quickly turned into one of the worst weeks of his life, full of fights, tears—on Ivy's part, not his—and then angry recriminations.

Well, maybe they'd been among the worst because Ianto wasn't one for angry outbursts. And this was not counting the weeks he'd been suspended from Torchwood Three after Lisa had died.

_Really, I shouldn't be doing my laundry at work, but it's not like I don't devote enough time and energy to this place, _thought Ianto. Their washer and dryer, too, were gleaming, super efficient, and top-notch, just like every other piece of technology Torchwood had once you got the hang of using it.

Besides, the longer he stayed in the Hub, the more likely it was that someone would ask him specifically why he'd left France early and completely single: in spite of his nearly native command of French, expansive knowledge of art, and ability to consume mass amounts of wine without getting drunk.

Jack probably wouldn't ask, which was fine: it would be far more satisfying for Ianto to have him overhear a loaded conversation… he knew Jack would be listening for an explanation. And, more to the point, Ianto had nothing else to do. The others had their tasks according to this latest assignment, but he'd been gone, so there was nothing he had to complete.

He heard the clack of heeled boots before Gwen appeared. "Hey," she called.

"Everything sorted with that reverend guy?" he asked, throwing a pair of jeans into the cold wash and adding detergent.

"Jack and I are going to interrogate him soon, once he fully wakes."

"That will be a nice change of pace for Jack, I'd imagine."

Gwen leaned against the dryer and handed Ianto another pair of jeans. "Definitely."

"Whose idea was it for him to go undercover?" Ianto asked—mostly to make conversation, because he knew exactly who would have proposed the notion.

It drove him crazy, because on more than one occasion Jack said he could _feel_ dying, and the thought of his dashing, charming Jack being in that much pain made Ianto want to go out and kill whoever was causing the hurt. This was true even, or especially, if Jack had voluntarily submitted to any of it. It brought out an edge in Ianto that he didn't know he'd had.

"His," said Gwen, smiling like she knew exactly what Ianto was thinking. "Ianto… has anything happened between you and Jack?"

Shutting the lid on the washer and pressing the start button, he said, "How do you mean?"

Nothing had happened, and that was the problem. Or, more accurately, Ianto had discovered it was a problem only after he'd tried to curtail anything happening between him and Jack, which made everything more difficult to express, much less to verbalize. It wasn't that he didn't have feelings for Jack. The issue was that he did.

But Jack going away without warning… _then _the way he'd looked at John on the first day he'd been back home… well, it all made something roil inside Ianto.

"He mentioned a few days before you and Ivy left for Paris that—" Gwen looked apologetic. "That he'd asked you on a date. That night we had to—"

"Put John back in the Rift, yeah," finished Ianto. She seemed embarrassed, but he was thankful to have someone to talk to about it. "I don't mind that he told you. I'm not surprised."

Torchwood was always a place where teammates bonded sooner or later, and certainly in different ways, but Jack had accepted Gwen as a solid confidante and conscience earlier than Ianto had expected. It didn't bother him; he liked Gwen too.

They walked back out into the cavernous main Hub space, Gwen taking his proffered arm.

"Well?"

"He did."

"And?"

Ianto laughed. "Curious, are you? Why, want a threesome before you're shackled to Rhys?" Gwen snorted and pinched his arm. "I'm sorry, I've been working under a sex-god—not that I know that firsthand; I'm only assuming—for too long. And, nothing."

"Oh shit. You said no."

"No, I _said_ yes. Then asked someone else out before I _could_ date our good Captain. Not that I went out of my way to indicate I was being exclusive. Actually, I only went out of my way to avoid him."

His response made Gwen stop walking. Ianto gave her a rueful smile. Gwen said, "You couldn't both just talk about this? Like adults?" She sat down on the couch and patted the empty cushion next to her.

"I don't think talking is what he has in mind." Ianto sat, stretching his long legs out on the coffee table, kicking off an empty pizza box with a well-polished black oxford.

"You're probably right, but you're going to have to. Talk, I mean."

"Gwen, he left us." The words came out quickly, but wearily. "He didn't say a word, he just left. I'm not one to hold grudges. I did nearly stalk him to get this job after Canary Wharf; I'm not about to resign or demand an explanation. But I'm confused."

She put a hand on his shoulder. "I know." Ianto knew she'd been just as hurt as he'd been, if for different reasons.

"And—" he definitely wasn't ashamed to admit this, but it baffled him a little. "It's not like it's men. It's just… Jack."

"Ianto, don't worry." Glancing around at Tosh, who'd looked over at them, Gwen lowered her voice. Ianto didn't know why she bothered, because Tosh probably knew the tenor of the conversation even if she couldn't hear them. "He's mad about you, you know. I don't doubt it," Gwen said, her green eyes following Jack, who was striding downstairs to meet her, his shirt and braces once more tidy and perfect. "And at least we're not talking about Owen."

Without so much as a nod to Ianto, Jack said to Gwen, "With me. He's shaken it all off. The women are still out cold. Ianto, that cabinet upstairs behind my desk could use some work." Ianto nodded, resigned.

_This is going to be an interesting couple of days, _he told himself. He predicted that Jack would alternatively bait him, or brush him off, just to see that he stayed off kilter.

Well, he supposed he deserved it for being a tease first, though he hadn't meant to be one. It had just taken a few weeks for his brain to acclimate to his feelings once Jack had asked him on a date. It's not like they were new feelings, either: his earliest meetings with Jack left him electrified and disconcerted. It was a sensation that, of course, he buried under sarcasm and Torchwood One-bred efficiency until Jack actually started flirting with him. That hadn't been much of a surprise, but the intensity and tenacity were.

The complicated part was that Jack was going to live forever—not so much that the list of his past lovers was lengthy, and Ianto had to admit, intimidating.

"Of course, Sir," Ianto replied as Jack brushed past his legs.

Jack paused. "Unless we agree to start role playing, can we stop with the 'Sir,' please?" He gave Ianto a brief, but twinkling, glance. "Gwen's been here less time than you and _she's_ never felt the need to call me sir." Gwen looked down to hide a smile, which in turn made Ianto smile.

"I do look forward to it—Jack," said Ianto, rising and striding past him to join Tosh at the CCTV screens, forgoing the disorganized cabinet to watch Gwen and Jack interrogate the reverend.

The man onscreen was lithe to the point of frailty and cuffed to a solid table. His face was hollow, with deeply hooded eyes. Tosh watched him with an expression of disgust.

"They call themselves the Simulacra," she explained for Ianto's benefit as he pulled up a chair. "But other than that, we don't know much."

"How'd you find out about them?"

"Well, we found an Ood that had escaped from this man, and it told us what it could. It died not long after. But mostly, the Simulacra had weevils in their custody."

Ianto thought back to his training days at Torchwood One, and then a conversation he'd had with Jack about the Ood. Jack hadn't gone into detail—he wouldn't often divulge more than he absolutely needed to—but Ianto knew they were a peaceful, hive mind race that had been taken advantage of and historically enslaved by humans in other galaxies. Sometimes they were found on Earth today, but they weren't prolific.

_That explains why Jack went in himself, then. He spoke highly of the Ood. _The weevils wouldn't have instigated as much of a definitive response from Jack on their own terms.

Skidding to a halt behind Ianto's chair and throwing out a hand to stop from pitching forward, Owen said, "Fuck. He's down there already?"

"About to be," said Tosh. She pushed her glasses back on her nose. "Why?"

"He's _not_ going to like what I got from those women's blood tests." Owen went to his desk and clicked his way through some diagnostic charts on the computer. "They're pregnant with non-human, non-sentient forms of life. I don't know what kind. We probably won't know what kind until they come out." Owen blanched as he reconsidered. "Or abort them, but that might kill the carriers."

Both Tosh and Ianto stared at him. "How pregnant?" Tosh said, after they'd had a moment to process. Shaking his head, Owen tossed his hands up in exasperation.

"I don't know that, either—isn't it fun working with alien life forms?" His angular face tightened. "The thing is, whatever those girls are carrying, they're biologically compatible with humans. Otherwise they'd all be dead already. Or maybe that's a bad sign, since that means there could be more of them out there."

"Wait," said Ianto with a frown. "But you said this cult was _torturing_ aliens. Weren't the women members of the cult?"

Tosh sighed. "We could be wrong. They could have been captives—maybe because it was known they were carrying alien life."

"That would require some measure of the same technology we have," Owen said.

"And it probably would be difficult to hold three women without that, or at least a strong sedative—look at the state of that bloke," mused Ianto. "He looks like one good nudge would shatter him to pieces."

"Appearances are deceptive," said Tosh. "He went after Jack pretty badly."

Instinctively, Ianto reached up to tap his earpiece before remembering he wasn't wearing one after being on holiday. "You'd better go tell them. Jack may not use the information right now, but it would be good ammunition."

Owen nodded and gathered up paper printouts to take to the interrogation room. Gwen and Jack had just entered, and they settled across from the reverend. He was watching them warily through the long, wispy hair that fell in his face.

What troubled Ianto was, he didn't look overly concerned: more just mildly inconvenienced.


	3. Escapism

**A/N: **Not going to lie, everyone... this chapter and the next one are heavily Janto-centric. No apologies, I just thought some of you might want a warning!

* * *

When the Hub fell silent and everyone had gone home for the night, Jack wished the evening had been more productive. The day, sure, they'd caught the reverend, but that turned out to be the only capstone. In interrogation, he was taciturn, smug, and generally impenetrable. A few hours after starting, with only one-word answers or grim smiles to show for it, Jack called it and he and Gwen went into a strategic retreat.

He needed to ponder the information Owen had given him. Since he wasn't sure what it meant, he decided it was best to use the bombshell wisely. Of course, he didn't have terribly long to ponder, depending on what kind of aliens were baking in those women's ovens... but he didn't have to confront that problem just yet. So he wouldn't. The women were safe. Confused about what was going on, as well as unwilling to talk out of either loyalty or conditioning, but safe for the time being.

Owen had fitted them with tiny microchips so that he and Tosh could continue monitoring their medical status and gathering data 24/7. Until tomorrow, the three were being kept in quarters in the Vault that were retrofitted to hide people rather than confine them. So they were still under surveillance, but they weren't locked up in a concrete cell the way the reverend was.

_Unless the reverend was expecting us to find out anyway, _thought Jack. _Or maybe he had no idea—not likely, but possible._ _And he didn't seem to know who Torchwood was, but then, it's not like he betrayed too much information anyway. I don't want to torture him. Time was that might have been the way to go, but not now. _

Sighing softly, he stared at one of the many greenhouse plants. It looked like an immaculately white orchid with a purple center, if an orchid had little sharp teeth and ate insects.

"Sir." Ianto stood against the doorframe, holding not a coffee tray but two cups of coffee. "I don't want to spill coffee on whatever _that_ is again."

He indicated an innocent looking leafy thing, one that mimicked ferns, with his incriminating stare. As it happened, when the plant was exposed to any kind of caffeine, it started to secrete toxic spores that acted as a numbing and paralyzing agent. Alien plants: one never knew exactly what would set them off. At least outside of being accidentally provoked, all the ones in the greenhouse were relatively safe.

"Fair enough," said Jack, moving to join him in the corridor outside. Ianto handed him his mug. "I thought you'd left."

Ianto said, "No reason to, really. There's enough for me to catch up on here, and my shirts are still in the dryer."

"Owen did make a mess of things in the archives—he was looking for something having to do with—"

"Speaking of that, Tosh still couldn't find much out about our captives."

"No, I know."

"What's your plan?"

Jack grinned lopsidedly. "Ianto, ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. I'll think about all of it again in the morning." He took a sip of his coffee. "You spiked this. With what? Wait, don't tell me." He took a bigger sip, letting the golden, mellow taste slide around on his tongue. "Glenfiddich." The coffee was actually mostly scotch.

"21 Year Old, to be exact. You okay with that?"

The tea boy looked deceptively innocent, searching Jack's face for—what? _I wish he would tell me what happened on vacation_, thought Jack.

"Why," said Jack slowly, "you trying to seduce me? This doesn't count as our date, you know." He leaned on the sturdy glass of the greenhouse's outside wall, watching Ianto.

"I don't need whisky to seduce you, s—"

"If you add a 'sir' onto that sentence, I will personally lock you inside the greenhouse after dumping your coffee on whatever that plant is. And no, you don't."

_Go gently with him, _he thought. Jack also had to remind himself how much older he was than Ianto—not just literally, but figuratively because of all the things he'd been through and seen. Obviously Ianto wasn't a child in any sense of the word. He was actually quite an old soul in Jack's opinion.

But he had a very sweet, almost chivalric view of love underneath all his sarcasm. _Then again so do I, when the _right_ person strikes me_, admitted Jack—and he knew he was looking directly at one of those people, though Ianto hadn't realized it yet—_but with Ianto, it's all or nothing. Well, all or nothing, or scantily clad women in magazines. _

"Glad we both agree."

Jack put his coffee down on one of the wide metal supports that lined the glass. Gingerly, he reached out, took Ianto's coffee and placed it next to his. Ianto stared at him, but let him take the mug. Their fingers brushed together briefly.

"We have to stop," said Jack.

"Hm?"

"When you've lived as long as I have, you start to realize games have one place: as foreplay. We can't keep doing this." He looked at Ianto intently, guessing part of what was on the younger man's mind. They'd already, mostly, hashed out Jack's disappearance with the Doctor, and Jack was in no hurry to go back to that conversation. It was important, but he wasn't going to keep apologizing for doing something he knew he had to do. "John was part of my past and he's _in_ my past."

"Gwen?"

"Is with Rhys," said Jack readily.

"But if things had been different—"

"They aren't. I love Gwen." Jack smiled, his blue eyes mischievous. "But I love Gwen in the same way I love Tosh and Owen. Which is to say, not_ that_ way."

Ianto bit his lip. "She said you were… well, she said you were mad about me. This afternoon. Just before you both went into interrogation." This made Jack move a little closer to him, although the corridor wasn't particularly roomy in the first place. Unflappable as ever, Ianto stayed where he was, but he gulped.

"She was right," said Jack, after watching Ianto proverbially squirm. He spread his arms out theatrically. "So what's keeping you?"

The two men looked at each other under the low Hub lighting, the purplish hue illuminating the satin brown of Ianto's suit. Ianto shook his head and broke eye contact. Jack put his arms down and inched toward him, wanting to stress just how much he actually wanted Ianto not only as a lover, but also as a companion.

It pained Jack to think he'd hurt him, but then, Ianto shouldn't have gone with the cutest girl he could find almost immediately after Jack had mentioned going on a date.

That was Harkness behavior—not Jones behavior.

"Nothing," sighed Ianto. He looked up, eyes burning.

"Then..."

Before Jack had closed the distance between them, Ianto had, taking Jack's face in his hands and kissing him deeply. Whatever Jack had expected kissing Ianto would be like, and he didn't count the time he'd given Ianto CPR, he wasn't expecting quite as much verve. Jack leaned back against the support beams, his shoulders thudding against glass, pulling Ianto into him with a growl.

Their coffee mugs fell to the floor, shattering and sending expensive scotch and necessary caffeine all over their shoes. Jack put a hand to the nape of Ianto's neck. "Jack," he breathed.

Jack's tongue parted Ianto's lips, coaxing him into silence. They remained that way, engrossed in caressing each other for several minutes, barely pausing to breathe, before Jack forced himself to think more rationally through the haze of need, the resolution of a conflict, and utter happiness. Ianto had begun to run a hand up Jack's inner thigh.

Reluctantly, Jack broke the kiss and pulled back, fingers still ghosting over Ianto's neck and short hair. "We should go," he murmured, halfway through a groan.

Ianto was panting, looking harried like he'd just been woken from a very deep slumber. "W—where?"

Jack chucked at his confusion and kissed him again, shortly, biting Ianto's lower lip as he came away. Normally, Ianto was so fastidious. Instead of having a restorative effect, this only made Ianto moan quietly.

"Well, the CCTV cameras are rolling up here, for one thing, and there aren't any in my office." Ianto followed Jack's pointed gaze to where the cameras were concealed in a corner ceiling panel, and swore. He rested his forehead against Jack's throat. "And my office is closer than my bed. It has a sofa."

"I could wipe them." He trailed his lips on Jack's skin. Jack ignored the vital need his body suddenly had to pull Ianto down on the floor and have him—brutally—with no further thought of the hazards of ceramic shards or hidden cameras.

_Steady on, Harkness. Gently. _

"You wouldn't; you're too ethical. Come on," Jack said, thrusting both of them up in a calculated manner designed to instigate Ianto to move while ensuring the most friction. "I don't mind exhibitionism, but I don't fancy our first time being against the greenhouse wall, of all places. Office? Much more sexy."

He took Ianto's warm hand and led the way to his office, which turned out to be more complicated than either man remembered it being, since they were constantly grappling to snatch a touch or a kiss. Jack didn't mind. It was delicious.

They both halted at the door, breathing gone ragged. Ianto said, "God, please be sure."

"I've been upgraded from 'Sir' to 'God' in one night and we haven't even had sex yet? I must be good."

"You wish."

"I do, yes."

Jack pinned Ianto to the doorframe and kissed him sweetly until he was saying—something impatient, maybe in Welsh, Jack didn't know what—into Jack's mouth. When Jack was sure neither of them could take more of the same, he reached behind Ianto and opened the office door, sending them sprawling inside.

Almost immediately, they began divesting each other of clothing, laughing at their determination. Jack felt, at last, that he and Ianto were on the same page. Tomorrow would wait.


	4. No Rest for the Wicked

Ianto felt like he could barely keep his eyes open. He lay on top of Jack's bare chest, feeling his rapid heartbeats. When Ianto regained the ability to speak, he tried again, having previously only produced croaks. "That was—fantastic, that was."

He peered around the now dilapidated office. The chair behind the desk was overturned, they'd knocked over a small bookshelf full of curios, and the filing cabinet that Jack had told him to look after was tilted in the opposite direction. Their clothes, too, were scattered around everywhere.

_I am going to have so much straightening up to do. Worth it,_ he thought.

Jack laughed, the sound reverberating pleasantly through Ianto's body. "That time specifically?"

"Oh yes, much better than the others," said Ianto with feigned seriousness.

"Technically it all counts as make-up sex, just so you know."

"Well, that's not something I want to be having all the time."

"Somehow, I don't think it's going to be an issue for us."

Glancing up at his boss darkly, Ianto said, "It might be if you keep volunteering to die just to get information." He admired the bedhead they'd produced on Jack's dark hair and the way it set off his eyes, which were sharp even in the semidarkness of his office.

Jack sighed. "Ianto, it turned out okay. I can survive anything. I think literally the only thing that hasn't happened to me is being blown up, and I'm not in any hurry to—"

"Thanks, I feel much better now. We're Torchwood. We have much cleverer ways to get people talking than having you moonlight as a spy. Maybe that's how you did it a thousand years ago, or however long ago you joined up."

Jack silenced him by putting a finger to his lips. "I didn't realize how much it would bother you until I did it, and you know I don't do it on a daily basis. Besides, it made the most sense in that particular situation."

"That's probably not true."

He tilted Ianto's chin up to look him directly in the eyes, since both of them were too tired to do much other than that. It wouldn't last long: it seemed that now they'd found each other, neither was willing to stop consummating the relationship in every assorted manner. "Stop, please."

It wasn't so much a command as a plea. Ianto huffed and ran his tongue lightly along Jack's fingertip. "Fine." He felt Jack's whole body shiver against him, which provoked a similar response on his part.

"Now I have a question," said Jack. He moved so that he and Ianto were curled toward each other, and replaced his arm over the dip in Ianto's side.

Much to Ianto's surprise—or not really, when he actually thought hard enough—the sofa was one of those ones that converted into a bed. It was a spartan, very narrow bed, but it served its purpose. Ianto was more surprised that the two of them could take their hands off one another long enough to _make_ the sofa into a bed. He enjoyed the sensation of Jack's hand stroking up and down his back before he answered. "Okay, what?"

"France."

_Fuck_, thought Ianto, fighting to keep his face neutral. "Is a country, yes—and also, that's not a question." Jack gave him his best 'no-nonsense' look.

"You left very early. May I take that to mean that you and whatever that woman's name was are no longer… an item? Not that you ever were an item."

Suddenly, Ianto realized he might be able to turn this conversation to his advantage, though he had retained a considerable advantage during the course of the night. Jack, also, wasn't even asking the pertinent questions, which involved why he and Ivy weren't 'an item.' Who knew that Paris had so many weevils? And Ianto could hardly stand by while... _never mind, we can talk about that later, _he chastised himself. _Cardiff's enough for him to handle at the moment. And Jack in Paris? If he's bad here, I don't want to see him in Pigalle. _

"You're very sure of yourself."

Jack's expression faltered, handsome face falling. Ianto tried to keep from bursting into laughter.

"What's the matter—don't like the idea of me having a bit on the side? I figured, you often— ah."

One of the things they had definitely established was the fact that Ianto would usually beg quickest when Jack was biting, licking, or otherwise exploring his neck. Jack used this edge now, so Ianto found it incredibly pointless to keep prodding him into a reaction. But Jack didn't stop there. Ianto wasn't sure if he wanted to moan or shout vulgarities as Jack snaked down his body, mouth warm as it made contact with skin, pausing to flick a tongue delicately around his left nipple.

So he compromised by issuing a breathy, "Fuck."

The look Jack gave him was positively cunning. "Never, ever goad me. I'll win. Well, we both will," he amended, teasing the same nipple with his fingers until Ianto had to reach out and grope at his hair. "Just don't. Very bad for trying to get some rest."

"Is that what we're trying to do?" said Ianto faintly. Jack had moved and was now kissing his hipbones. Ianto half hoped and dreaded that he'd move lower, even when ten minutes ago he wasn't sure he'd need Jack to get him off again. "Jesus."

"It's half past seven in the morning," he heard Jack say from somewhere against his thigh. How Jack even realized the time was beyond Ianto's comprehension at the moment. "So, no."

First, he tensed, thinking he had to get ready for work, until he remembered it was a Sunday, not Monday, morning. Jack, not mistaking the reason why Ianto's muscles had all gone tight, placed a leisurely hand on his lover's chest to restrain him as he continued to place his lips barely—just barely—over Ianto's cock. "You just… don't stop, do you?"

They'd probably gotten about four hours of sleep, and not all in a row.

Ianto's only answer was the chuckle he felt rather than heard. He got lost for a moment, feeling absolutely exquisite, crying Jack's name both because he couldn't stop himself and he'd learned Jack enjoyed it—until he heard the sound of the Hub alarms going off, indicating that someone had come in.

He gave a strangled, "Shit, you told them to come back this morning, I forgot— Jack, seriously…"

The hand on Ianto's chest reached a little further up, stifling his protests, as Jack took him entirely into his mouth, forgoing the playful teasing.

Ianto's last coherent thought as he arched his back, his body giving in, was—_but one of the walls is glass. I am going to kill him._

He moaned against Jack's hand, finding the thought that he shouldn't—out of embarrassment, or decency—was trumped by what Jack was doing to him in order to make him moan. He heard Jack's answering, muffled noises of satisfaction, and that, more than anything else, made him finish. Ianto lay back on the cushions, trying to catch his breath but failing.

Slowly, as though not to startle him again, Jack came back up to join him. Ianto could only watch as Jack licked his lips lightly, more out of enjoyment than for show. "I told you not to goad me." He leaned forward and kissed Ianto as he pleasured himself, groaning into the kiss when he came. It didn't take long, given the situation: Ianto knew he'd been holding back.

They rested against each other, collapsed on the sofa, unable to move. "Who do you think is here?" Ianto said, at last.

Jack shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"No."

"We ought to get up," murmured Jack, his eyes closed, one arm slung across Ianto, who was still trembling.

"You first."

"When you put it that way…"

The decision was made for them when Owen's voice carried to their ears, sounding much closer than it should have been. "Jack?"

His footsteps were loud on the metal stairs. Jack sighed and cracked his eyes back open. "No rest for the wicked."

Both Ianto and Jack rose, almost in unison, and attempted to find their respective clothing. Ianto suspected... no, knew... Jack wouldn't care about addressing any member of his team while in the altogether, as his search seemed halfhearted.

By the time Owen knocked on the door and then opened it—without waiting a very polite amount of time, in Ianto's opinion—Jack had gotten half dressed in his trousers. Ianto fared slightly worse off, managing only to find his shirt, which had lost a couple of buttons, and his boxers. He glanced over at Jack, whose braces were dangling uselessly at his sides.

Owen's face registered absolutely no shock, disapproval, or confusion.

"Fucking finally, mates." His brown eyes took in the chaotic state of Jack's office. Then they flicked from Jack, who'd broken into a reluctant smile, to Ianto, who was hunting for the rest of yesterday's clothes. He whistled. "You two really did a number in here. Sorry to interrupt, but there's been a spike in all three of the women's blood pressure. Totally uniform. Tosh is on her way early, too."

"Thanks, Owen," said Jack, with the barest hint of sarcasm. "I wasn't convinced you'd actually come to work on a Sunday, much less be the first one here. Well—exempting the obvious."

"Unlike the rest of you, I spent the night alone. Hard to believe, I know," said Owen, arching an eyebrow before he turned to head back down the stairs. "I'll get the coffee then, shall I?" he called over his shoulder.

"Nope," yelped Ianto, who, having found his trousers, was now wrestling on his wrinkled jacket. Owen's coffee was odious. "No, that won't be necessary." Owen only laughed.


End file.
